Bourbon Chicken & Irish "Venison" Stew (Respectively)

It's true what they say about the Holiday's being the busiest time of the year! I have several posts I'd like to do, and slowly but surely I'll get them up! For starters I'd like to just rave about two recipes I've tried in the past week or so. The first one being Bourbon Chicken. I'm always searching for new quick/easy dinners to add into the mix. Amber's Delectable Delights had the answer to my dinner-prayers! I figured I would give this one a shot Monday night for dinner. I made some Garlic Red Mashed Potatos & some Mixed veggies & let me tell you... Trevor, Hunter and I all cleared our plates. What a great find! The recipe isn't too difficult especially if you have someone to cut up the chicken for you (Thanks babe :) ). This one will definitely serve as a regular dinner choice from now on.

Ingredients:
2 lbs boneless chicken breasts, cut into bite size pieces
1-2 tablespoon olive oil
1 garlic clove, crushed
1/4 teaspoon ginger
3/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
1/4 cup apple juice
1/3 cup light brown sugar
2 tablespoons ketchup
1 tablespoon cider vinegar
1/2 cup water
1/3 cup soy sauce

Directions:
Heat oil in a large skillet.
Add chicken pieces and cook until lightly browned.
Remove Chicken.
Add remaining ingredients, heating over medium heat until well mixed and dissolved.
Add chicken and bring to a hard boil.
Reduce heat and simmer for 20 minutes.

Can you say yum??

Today in honor of Trevor's first "normal" shift since he started working at the hospital (9-5), I wanted to make something that we enjoy in the crockpot. We had some venison in the freezer that we need to use up (my lovely hunting man thinks he's going to have a bunch more venison to add to the freezer if he could just find that one helpless deer to shoot). So, I looked through some of my cookbooks and surfed the internet for good "venison" recipes. I stumbled across this...

Irish Beef Stew. It sounded perfect, with the substitution of venison for beef of course! I also didn't have any guiness on hand so I used Blue Moon, which tasted just fine. I cooked this recipe according to the directions except after I sauted the vension and cooked the potatos in butter, I added them to the crockpot with the remaining ingredients. I cooked it for about 5 1/2 hours and it was perfect! We had it with some warm buttered italian bread. Trev loved it & we ended up having a bunch of leftovers that we froze for a cold winter night.

Ingredients

• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 1 1/4 pounds well-marbled chuck beef stew meat, cut into 1-inch pieces (NOT extra-lean)
• 6 large garlic cloves, minced
• 6 cups beef stock or canned beef broth
• I cup of Guinness beer
• 1 cup of fine red wine
• 2 tablespoons tomato paste
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1 tablespoon dried thyme
• 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
• 2 bay leaves
• 2 tablespoons (1/4 stick) butter
• 3 pounds russet potatoes, peeled, cut into 1/2-inch pieces (about 7 cups)
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 2 cups 1/2-inch pieces peeled carrots
• Salt and Pepper
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley

Instructions

1 Heat olive oil in heavy large pot over medium-high heat. Lightly salt the beef pieces. Working in batches if necessary, add the beef (do not crowd the pan, or the meat will steam and not brown) and cook, without stirring, until nicely browned on one side, then use tongs to turn the pieces over. Continue to cook in this manner until all sides are browned, about 5 minutes. Add garlic and sauté 1 minute. Add beef stock, Guinness, red wine, tomato paste, sugar, thyme, Worcestershire sauce and bay leaves. Stir to combine. Bring mixture to boil. Reduce heat to medium-low, then cover and simmer 1 hour, stirring occasionally.

2 While the meat and stock is simmering, melt butter in another large pot over medium heat. Add potatoes, onion and carrots. Sauté vegetables until golden, about 20 minutes. Set aside until the beef stew in step one has simmered for one hour.

3 Add vegetables to beef stew. Simmer uncovered until vegetables and beef are very tender, about 40 minutes. Discard bay leaves. Tilt pan and spoon off fat. Transfer stew to serving bowl. Add salt and pepper to taste. Sprinkle with parsley and serve. (Can be prepared up to 2 days ahead. Cool slightly. Refrigerate uncovered until cold, then cover and refrigerate. Bring to simmer before serving.)

Delicious!!

Like I mentioned, I have a few posts from this week & weekend including a few book reviews but I'll get to that shortly. For now, I am going to snuggle with my sweet little dragon who is ready for bed. Hope everyone has a good night!